


Liberation

by notsmokingcamellights



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 01:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsmokingcamellights/pseuds/notsmokingcamellights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Albus Dumbledore goes to visit his dearest friend to tell him that he must participate in a duel of great importance, that, unbeknownst to either party, will remain one of the greatest duels of all time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberation

**Author's Note:**

> "There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." - JK Rowling

Amidst an array of cuts, bruises and injuries they couldn’t even properly name anymore, the two boys sped past each other on lopsided broomsticks, hurling the golden snitch back and forth.

“Alby, where’d it go?”

“How should I know? You threw it last!”

“No, you did!”

“Did not!”

“They were your socks! Might as well bloody find them.”

Several back and forth retorts later, Albus discovered that the argument couldn’t be won. Carefully, he dismounted and began to search.

(He looked down and knew at once his secret would be safe. Never would he expect Alby to betray his location even under an Unbreakable Vow, but he questioned himself immediately as to whether this still held true. Months had gone by without either man corresponding to the other, and the news that have reached him regarding the ever-evolving wizarding prowess of the once-unknown Albus Dumbledore both made his heart swell with pride and made his mind automatically think all this a threat to everything he worked so long to build.

It took everything Gellert Grindelwald had not to run down the stairs two steps at a time like he used to do, but instead to take them each with a dreadful sense of acceptance and inevitability. Turning his head, he saw the afternoon sun and knew it was going to sink soon, and he wished he could have observed it a while longer.

It made the sky look like death.

Albus’ head was turned towards it too, and Gellert couldn’t tell if the other man thought the same thoughts as he. The slump of the shoulders, stiff, whilst the gait, uncertain. All of this bothered Gellert more than he could bear, but he wouldn’t admit it to a single soul, not even to himself.

“I expected you to be late,” he said, as he shoved his hands in his pockets and sized up Alby, all gawk, brown hair and half-moon spectacles he was sure he’d never seen before. Despite that however, the only change he could see was that Alby resembled an ancient mirror, only showing the slightest hints of age that didn’t seem to make much particular difference whatsoever. He couldn’t tell whether this sight was more bemusing than comforting.

“You know I’m never late,” Albus smiled wryly, right hand leisurely clasped over his left. “Frankly, I didn’t think you’d respond to my owl.”

“I don’t respond to anyone’s owls,” Gellert responded, letting the unfinished thought hang in the air. He was satisfied to see Alby’s eyes flicker in understanding, and beckoned him to follow him inside, suddenly self-conscious of his surroundings. 

“Have a seat,” he mumbled, as he scurried to peer into his cupboards. “Care for some wine, Albus?”

“Would you like me to have some?”

“Yes, very much,” Gellert responded, with a bottle of Merlot already in hand. He took two glasses and filmed them equally to the brim, as he assumed this would be a rather long conversation if Alby took all that trouble to speak to him in person. He seated himself opposite the wizard, and barely seemed to notice the entire expanse of long table between them.

Alby took two sips and the two stared at each other in a silence that was comfortable and apprehensive at the same time. Sooner or later, it began to feel agonizing, and Gellert felt it was his obligation to break it, partly because Alby was his guest, and partly because he simply couldn’t bear it any longer.

“I suppose you have to state the reason why you’re here or we will be getting absolutely nowhere,” he retorted, his voice seeming surprisingly cold. Before Alby could respond, he raised his right hand to stop him. “Don’t you dare say you were only here to visit. Even a muggle wouldn’t believe you.”

“Muggles aren’t as ignorant as you think,” Alby replied, taking a sip that looked to Gellert like it exhibited a sense of finality. “But that isn’t what I’ve come here to talk about.”

“Humor me. Don’t tell me politics has been bothering you again.”

“That, and the fact that you haven’t called me Albus in more than a decade.”

Gellert’s jaw clenched at this.

Before his eyes, Albus Dumbledore seemed to age an infinitesimal number of years as he sighed. He felt his head pound as he prepared for the worst.  
“I’ve made a vow,” Alby smiled, as if the entire weight of the world and all of its circumstances was lifted off his shoulders.

“Oh,” he replied, taking another sip. “When’s the date, then?”

“Pardon?” 

“I mean, I’m flattered you decided to invite me, but I’m afraid I can’t go and I assume this is why you came here, to brief me of the details.”

“I don’t understand—“

“By gods, at least tell me her name, Alby, you owe me that much,” Gellert smiled as his old friend shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“It’s not that, Gellert, you misunderstand,” Alby replied in a booming voice that startled him and yet… he should have expected this. Gellert knew the best thing he could do was to keep his mouth shut. “I’ve made an unbreakable vow. To disobey it would be—“

“--the cause of your own instantaneous death, Alby. You think I don’t know this?” Gellert retorted, shaking his head. “What precisely have you gotten yourself into?”  
His tone was flat and his words seemed to be coming from somewhere else, far away from this place where few things mattered. Alby’s look was distant, disappointed, and virtually unreadable. Finally, he began, and the subsequent events and questions asked and answered would haunt Gellert Grindelwald for the rest of his natural life.

“I have made an unbreakable vow to the Ministry of Magic that I would duel the most wanted wizard of the past ten years, tomorrow at sundown. I have sworn that I will not hold back, lest the culprit kill me in the process, rendering the Ministry’s last attempt at capturing him utterly useless. It is my duty for my people, muggles, and for the state,” Alby said, with all the conviction of a man being forced to recite his own death sentence from memory. Gellert wished he was comforted by the fact that Alby had the decency to put his head in his hands. He counted to five in his mind, and prayed to no one in particular that his voice would not break.

“I know why you’re doing this.”

“Dear friend, you must understand—“

“Do not bother to call me that any longer.”

“I swear, let me—“

“It would’ve happened anyway,” Gellert laughed, without humor and without sense. “And you’re going to tell me you didn’t see this coming.”

“Gellert, if you would please just---“

“You know you didn’t have to do this right? They would have named you Minister in a heartbeat,” he retorted, without noticing that he stood up minutes earlier and was then pacing across the floor. “They’ve wanted to for so long, and now you’d be too stupid to refuse.”

“I have never wanted to be Minister of Magic and I never will accept any offer to do so,” Alby retorted, stance as straight as could be, and eyes livid. Gellert willed himself to not back away as his friend took slow steps forward. “This was never about power, Gellert, it was about justice. All those innocents dead, because of you and your poisonous dream. There are some concepts, universes, artifacts that are worlds apart from our own and that we can never yield the power to control. You, of all people should know—“

“Don’t you dare,” he replied. Albus took tentative looks at his shaking hands, but he couldn’t will himself to care. “If you even as much utter a syllable that tells me I am incapable of wielding the Elder Wand for all time, you will wish you would have never met me.”

“You don’t understand,” Alby chuckled slightly, leaning his hand against the long table as if it were the only thing enabling him to stand. “I could never wish for that.”

“Fool,” Gellert scoffed, draining his entire wine glass in one gulp. “Anyone with half your brains would’ve thought you senseless.”

“They say that only one thing can sometimes overcome intellect,” Alby sighed, gazing at nothing in particular as if someone died before his eyes. Gellert fought the urge to punch him in the throat and leave. 

“A fool’s judgment, no doubt.”

“Gellert, you don’t understand, it’s not because of any of that.”

Alby rushed to him and grabbed his shoulders roughly, enough to make him wish he never doubted the strength of his friend. As Alby stared into his eyes, he uttered three words to Gellert that he would never speak of to anyone, words that he himself did not utter in his life time. Alby released him and bowed his head, and proceeded to the opposite side of the long table like a school boy reprimanded and ordered to take his seat. 

Alby closed his eyes.

“If you think, for even a millimeter of a second, that the duel tomorrow will be harder for you than it is for me, frankly my dear friend, you do not know me at all.”  
A million things ran through Gellert’s mind at the time, and only a dozen or so of these things were able to leave his mouth. These were some of them.

“All this time—“

“Yes.”

“I thought you had a few---“

“No.”

“That you were just shy, that you wouldn’t tell me who---“

“If there were, Gellert, you would be the first to know.”

“All of the ones I loved… every single one I introduced to you---“

“I treated them with kindness, Gellert. As you would expect from your closest friend.”

Seconds ticked by, and he found himself with his right fist clenched on the table, unable to look at his only friend. He heard a slip of paper slide across the table, and an envelope was addressed to him in Alby’s neatest cursive hand. 

“Inside is the location of the duel. The Ministry requests me to be prompt, and I expect you will be too,” Alby replied, voice steady but eyes glistening with peacefulness and release. Gellert suspected that Alby wanted to shake his hand, but both parties knew it would be too bold of him to do so.

Before exiting, Alby turned toward him and said, “Good-bye. May the best man win.” 

It took Gellert approximately more than two minutes to read the entire letter twice. It took him less than ten seconds to crush it in his hand.)

“Found it!”

“Well, give it here!”

“That’s the thing, it’s not in one piece.”

“What do you mean?”

The two boys stared at the muddy sock, and looked at each other simultaneously.

“What are the odds of us finding the other half?”

“Slim to nil, I reckon.”

“We go for it anyway?”

“Bugger it. Why not?”


End file.
